WE HAPPENED TO BE SEATED NEXT TO EACH OTHER, KAT SEATON and I. So when the meeting adjourned and she did not stand to leave, it seemed clear she wanted me to do the same.
Bob Green hustled out first, muttering his goodbyes. One by one, the others followed. “You coming, Gabe?” asked Madeline. “I thought we might go over what the team has been doing, then get some lunch.”
I felt Mrs. Seaton’s eyes on me, willing me to stay. “Give me a few minutes,” I told Madeline. “I’ll catch up.”
Madeline stood in the doorway looking at us, first me and then Kat Seaton, who sat silently, her gaze trained on the table. She lifted her water glass to drink and the diamonds on her left hand set off a brilliant shower of sparks.
“All right, page me when you’re done, okay?” Madeline backed out and gently closed the door.
I turned to face Mrs. Seaton. “You wanted to speak to me?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “But given what we just discussed, that whole meeting, I feel like some kind of cliché.”
“Is that important to you?” I asked. “Do you feel like there’s pride in being different?”
“Well … kind of.” She turned, swiveling her chair so that her knees were pointing toward me. She had one of those tight older women’s bodies. Pilates, that was my guess. Her bobbed hair was gray and her face had pretty crinkling lines, but from the neck down she could have been thirty. I wondered if that was part of Madeline’s hesitation—jealousy. In a profoundly adolescent way, I hoped that it was. “I feel, Father McKenna, like there’s value in thinking for oneself.”
“I’d agree.” I could already tell we were in a sparring match, one of those old-fashioned Oscar Wilde wars of words and wit. This lady wouldn’t be a crier—not unless the tactic would help her win a point.
She looked at me, a bemused smile on her powdery face. “I had an abortion, Father.”
First, in my defense, I looked over at the door to make sure it was closed. But then I said, “Mrs. Seaton, that is very possibly the greatest cliché in the Catholic Church.”
“I know, I know.” She nodded as if we were two scientists making a breakthrough together. “How many times have you heard this in confession?”
“Honestly, Mrs. Seaton”—I’d even slipped into a mildly Victorian style of speech—“So many, I’ve lost count.”
“Ah, but I think my story has a slightly different … twist.”
I settled back, hands folded in front of me; I would play my part to the end. “Tell me,” I said. And she tipped her head, birdlike, to the left.
“It was 1975. Rick was finishing up at Wharton. We were engaged, and I was planning a wedding for 250 the following year. That’s when I found out I was pregnant. Oh, and I was sick. Putrid! Miserable, every day. You have no idea.”
“I’m sure I don’t,” I said.
“So. I tried to hide it from him, from my mother. I passed it off as flu for a few days. I remember …” Again she smiled, as if this were a happy memory. “We had to put off our appointment to taste cake. That would have been …” She shook her head. “Intolerable.”
“That sounds very difficult.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Father, it does not.” Her tone got a little schoolmarmish, and I sat up in my chair. Kat Seaton leaned down and retrieved a small silver tube from her purse; she squirted a dollop of cream on her hand and began briskly rubbing it in. The scents of rose and patchouli rose in the air. “Lotion?” she asked, holding up the tube.
“Why not?” I held out one palm, and she deposited a tuft of the cream there before stowing it back in her purse.
“Back then, of course, I thought what was happening to me was tragic. I was terrified. Everything would be ruined, all our plans. I went to a doctor who set the due date the same week as our wedding. It was—well, when I look back, kind of funny.” She laughed briefly, but I did not.
“When did you decide to terminate?” Despite my ambivalence, all the many years I’d spent wrestling this issue inside my own conscience, I had adopted the lingo of the other side because it seemed more humane.
“Well, I told Rick. Finally. After his thesis defense. We discussed the options, which were—remember—brand-new. The Supreme Court had passed Roe v. Wade just the year before. This was a new era for women. We had choices. You can’t imagine how significant that was.”
“So you chose not to have the baby.”
“We chose not to have the baby. I was on the fence. I was embarrassed, and I wanted my beautiful wedding.” She rolled her eyes, a teenage gesture in a sixty-year-old face. “But Rick made the better, more logical arguments. We weren’t prepared: he was just starting a job with lots of travel, and we’d been planning to go together. Shanghai, Tokyo, Paris. There wasn’t room for a baby. Not yet. Can you imagine, Father?”
She stared at me, and I remained silent, staring back.
“We decided whether to have a child based upon a week in Paris.” She found a leftover dab of lotion on the back of one hand and worked it in. “It rained,” she said as she rubbed, “the whole time we were there.”
“Was there counseling provided back then?” I’d have been a baby at the time, I was thinking. Her phantom child and I would be around the same age. “Many women are depressed after an abortion. It sounds like you needed help.”
“Not at all. I was fine. In fact, I was tremendously relieved. The procedure went off like that.” She snapped her fingers. “All the horror stories I’d heard? Nothing. I went home, I rested for a day or two. It was like nothing had happened. I went on to plan my wedding, and it turned out exactly like I wanted. You should see the pictures, Father. Like Charles and Diana.” She smirked. “Well, almost.”
“So when …”
“Not until our brothers and sisters started having children, and Rick said he’d like to try. I’d been on the Pill—another new thing—even though the Church said not to. That just seemed silly.” She took a drink of water, set her empty glass carefully on one of the coasters Candy had passed out. “Then my sister had a baby. Amy. Oh, she was so beautiful. I was completely in love with that little girl. But she was also like proof for me that this—pregnancy—was a real process. Do you know what I mean? I’d seen my sister sick as a dog one entire Fourth of July weekend, then growing larger and larger as winter came on and now, suddenly, there was this new person in the world. It just. Stopped me.”
“Mrs. Seaton,” I said, trying mightily to suppress my boredom. “There is still nothing new here. I have talked to hundreds of women who regret their abortion. And I have no doubt that God understands.”
She was shaking her head. “No. No, no. Father, I have long since forgiven myself for the abortion itself. It’s an option, it was for me. And I took it at one moment in my life. That, I can live with. It’s what I did next.”
I waited, and again she smiled. This seemed to be her defense. “So we were talking about having a baby. It was a very good time: Rick had been promoted, and we’d bought a house. All I had to do was stop taking the Pill. But I … didn’t.”
“You kept taking it?” I was more interested now. No one ever thought to confess about birth control.
“I did. And I wish I could tell you why.” Her face twisted, and for a few seconds she was an ancient woman. “I would think about that first pregnancy. It had only been three years since the abortion at that point, and I wondered, why now but not then? Why this baby, not that? It was so …” Her hand fluttered in the air. “Random.”
“What did your husband think?” I asked.
“He, ah, didn’t know.” Again, the smile. “He never knew, Father. He was disappointed every month.”
“So you kept it up?”
“I did.” She sat up straight, as if this were a point of pride. “Because I knew, I knew that when I got pregnant for the second time, with Rick, we would both, in our heads, think about that first time and imagine how old that child would be. Whether it was a boy or a girl. I had such a strong aversion to that. It was some form of pride, I suppose.”
“Yes, it always comes back to one of the seven deadly sins, doesn’t it?” I felt I was playing my part, but Kat Seaton looked at me strangely and I remembered that she had cast the deciding vote in our favor. I hunched forward, hands clasped, full priest on. “What is it that’s bothering you?”
“I’ve lied to my husband for forty years,” she said somewhat proudly, an irony that was not lost on me. “We went to a doctor once and talked about infertility. It was a brand-new specialty back then. But Rick …” She got a dreamy, indulgent look; it was likely she really did love the man.
“He’s very Catholic, a lay deacon with our church. He wouldn’t tell anyone that we actually had conceived a child once and aborted it. So the doctor did all his tests, found nothing wrong, and concluded that our chemistry just wasn’t right for each other. I remember the night we got the ‘results.’” She made air quotes with her fingers, a gesture I detest for no reason I can name. I stifled my irritation with a cough. “Rick was so sweet. He told me it didn’t matter. Our chemistry was perfect as far as he was concerned.”
“But you kept it up, even after your husband proved his love to you?”
“Yes, isn’t that odd?” She peered at me. “What do you make of it?”
I was startled. Never in my tenure had anyone asked me to define their sin. This required thought. I imagined myself as a young woman in the early seventies, experiencing the equally strong pulls of the Rolling Stones and the Catholic Church. I had a tendency to idealize that period—as we all do the eras in which we’re born. But to be female at a time when abortion was ten minutes legal and free love was on the news? I formed a ridiculous picture—inspired, I’m sure, by some record album cover—of a young Kat Seaton in a mini-skirt, twirling senselessly against a fiery sky.
“Whom did you tell about the abortion? Your sister, your mother?”
“No one,” she said. Her tone was approving. She wanted me to find the answer, and I was getting warm. “Rick never wanted anyone to know.”
“So you weren’t ashamed of it, but he was?”
She sighed. “I don’t want to give you the wrong impression, Father. My husband is a man of great principle. You will find, when you meet him, he’s the only one on that board who gives a damn about doing the right thing. But this … His way of dealing with it was to erase it. Put it in the past. I believe that may have been my concern: If I’d become pregnant I might have talked about that first time. It would have hurt him.”
“It takes a great deal of energy to ignore your past,” I told her. Believe me, I intoned silently. I should know. “If you were protecting Rick, that’s your answer. Also, and here I’m just speculating, but you were really at the beginning of something. How to be a wife and, if you chose, a mother had changed radically. There were no role models. Am I right?”
“Perhaps.” She was a tough one, unwilling to give me points I hadn’t earned. “But I could have sought them out. Someone. There were groups of women becoming enlightened. Our Bodies, Ourselves. That sort of thing.” She paused. “But I do think you’re right. I spoke to no one, except Rick. And he?” She held her hands up, creased palms to the sky. “He didn’t want to talk.”
We sat. This seemed unsatisfying to me. We’d solved the puzzle of Mrs. Seaton’s, behavior but I felt no godly work had been done.
“How is your marriage now?” I asked, casting about for what we’d left unsaid.
“Wonderful. Same as it’s always been.” She was firm. But I took a chance, let her sit, looked at her with what I hoped was deep meaning in my eyes. “We’ve been lucky. We’ve always had enough money, more than enough. And we’ve traveled.” More clichés. I was ready to give up. “But Rick isn’t well.”
“The knee surgery?” I asked. Oh, the problems of wealthy runners, I jeered in my head.
“No. That’s what we told people.” She knew what I thought. “He has diabetes. It’s been terrible the past few years. His eyesight is failing. He had his left foot amputated. He thinks …” She stopped and breathed, head tipped back. “He’s going to get a prosthesis and be able to pass off the limp as a side effect of knee surgery.”
“He’s a man who avoids the truth,” I said.
“We all do,” she told me sternly. “And one of the reasons he’s so terrified now is,” she swallowed, “there are no children to rely on, no one to inherit everything he’s built. No point.”
“You’re right. This story is very different from what I expected.”
Mrs. Seaton took less pleasure in this than I would have thought. “Do you see now?” she asked. “I can’t tell him what I’ve done. It would damage him—us—at this point in our lives. And for what?”
“But it’s hard to live with this alone.”
She nodded and pressed her fingertips to the corners of her eyes, briefly smoothing out the furrowed skin.
My hips were cramping, so I stood and paced a few steps in either direction. Kat Seaton was easily twenty years older and had been in her chair longer, but she looked perfectly comfortable. Clearly, I thought, I should check out Pilates. “Mrs. Seaton?” I said from above.
“Kat, please.” It seemed late to achieve that level of intimacy, but I went along.
“Kat, are you talking to me because you feel guilty, or because you’re sad? I can absolve guilt. Sometimes that works. But sadness over something that’s real?” I leaned against the wall, hands in pockets, a little thug-like. “There is no cure.”
Finally, she placed her hands on the table and allowed her old eyes to fill. “I was afraid of that. It’s why I’ve never confessed. But we came today, and Madeline talked all about your amazing power, how you make people …” A tear slid down her cheek; otherwise, she was motionless. “Whole.”
“I’m very sorry.” I pushed off the wall and went to sit next to her and put my hand on one of hers. “I can’t make you whole, because there will always be something missing. What I can do is bear the sadness with you. We all make choices in life that cut off possibilities. We marry one person and not another. Or marry no one and devote our life to God. We have children or, in the case of both of us, we do not. And there’s always something haunting us. Everyone to some degree, but people like us more than others.”
She did not respond for a long time, and her hand under mine was as still as stone. Then she cleared her throat into the air and spoke in a strong voice. “I’ve noticed that most people get more certain as they get older. You will find this, Father. As our friends have gotten to be sixty and sixty-five years old, most insist that whatever they have done, it was the ‘right way.’ Everyone should hold the same political opinions or religious views. However they have lived their lives, whomever they have married, they’d do it all again. No regrets, no regrets.” She shook her head. “If I had a dollar for every pompous ass who’s sat at my dinner table saying that.”
“You know it’s a coping mechanism,” I said. I was way off my usual spiritual turf, but flexibility seemed to be a requirement of my new job. “What you’re talking about is a type of myopia that people use so they can live with their choices. It’s magical thinking. It’s not real.”
“Yes, well, I want that.” Mrs. Seaton—no, Kat—gave me a steely, demanding look. “I was hoping you could give that to me.”
“If I could do that for you,” I said severely, leaning forward and matching her ire word for word. “Don’t you think I’d do it for myself?”
“Yes, I suppose you would,” she said, that sly smile returning as her hand finally came to life and turned over to grasp mine. “Peace be with you, Father.”
“And with you,” I said, grinning in return.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever used that phrase with such an awareness of what it means,” Kat said, rising neatly from her seat. She stood first on one foot and then on the other, a move I imagined she executed most often in a black leotard.
“I wish your husband great healing and faith,” I said. “And I wish you the solace of knowing that you have lived as best you could.”
“Thank you, Father.”
I stood and picked up her coat from the back of her chair, holding it as the acolytes once held my robes so she could slip her arms into the sleeves.
“You are a very sweet man,” she said turning, touching my cheek in a motherly way. “I’m not sure you’ll make it in this business.”
“What a nice thing to say,” I told her, and meant it. “But I’m not even sure what making it means.”
From: Abel Dodd
To: Forgiveness Team
Subject: possible taglines
Comrades—
Here are the taglines I’ve worked up for message testing on Monday. I pulled these from a much longer list that I’m happy to share if you want to see the unabridged contents of my demented mind. But I’m pretty confident these are the best options. Let me know what you think.
—A. Dodd
What would Gabe do?
Yeah, it’s overused. But everyone gets it, and we could distribute those ridiculous rubber bracelets and bumper stickers with WWGD on them.
Did something? Tell someone.
Plays off the public safety message: “See something? Tell someone.” Not my favorite, but it has a nice asked-and-answered rhythm that people will remember.
Absolution for Everyone
Speaks to the egalitarian nature of this service and sounds like a civil rights rally cry. Also, sounds nice said out loud.
What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?
This may be my top choice. It’s weird, gets to the heart of the matter. And it’s a twist on the typical tagline that makes assurances.
Confession: It’s not just for Catholics any more.
Pushes the boundaries but you have to admit, it’s funny. Will get people’s attention and could make for a great campaign.
Helping You Feel Better Today
Goes immediately to the primary benefit and may appeal to the Buddhist-convert self-help crowd.
Expert Exonerations for Everyday Sins
Alliterative, a little bit sarcastic, and pretty darn accurate. People who get the irony will love it. A close second for me.
From: M. Madeline Murray
To: Abel Dodd
Cc: Isaac Beckwith
Subject: Re: possible taglines
Hi Abel—
Thanks so much for all your hard work! You’ve provided some excellent options here. I’m going to recommend removing the first one: “What Would Gabe Do?” I think that trope has been played out, and since our idea is completely original, we need language that’s just as fresh. Everything else? Pure gold.
Just wanted to let you know, because I’m calling a check-in for this afternoon to get input from the team. We go into testing Monday morning at 9 a.m. with the goal of producing creative by late that afternoon. It’s my meeting but would love it if you’d take the lead.
Thx.
MMM
From: Isaac Beckwith
To: M. Madeline Murray
Subject: Re: possible taglines
Hey sweetcheeks—
Wish you’d checked with me before calling that meeting. Whatever Scott, Joy, and the rest of the Scooby Gang have to say this afternoon, I plan to take the full list into testing. Abel’s a genius. And no, I don’t care how much it costs.
By the way, I saw you eyeing our client during the Red Oak meeting. What’s the deal with women and priests? It’s so fucking Thornbirds. Just keep your hands (and other parts) off him while he’s working for us. Okay? If this thing falls apart, you can dress him up in feathers and ride him in Buckingham Fountain, for all I care.
Dinner tonight?
IB